An Easter Surprise

April 24, 2011 Blogpost – An Easter Surprise

Hi, Folks,
Are you all mad at me, or just Nancy? She thinks I don’t blog nearly enough. Ah, the power of the written word. I talk to her and see her plenty, but she must see my words in print. So, here goes… After a long week of work, having a horrendous cold, and nighttime commitments, I had just settled down Friday night for what I thought were 2 days of vegging. You slackers know all about that. About 9:30 the phone rang. It was Tim. Megan’s plant had had a power outage, and she had to work all day Sat. and Sunday. What were we doing for Easter? To be honest, I hadn’t really planned that far ahead. I had bought Nancy a couple doodads at the bookstore, but that was the extent of my holiday planning. Tim was coming to visit by himself. In true motherly mode, I immediately threw off my blanket, stood up, blew my nose, covered my cough, smoothed out my flannel jammies, and got busy. I cleaned the bathroom, washed the sheets, made chocolate chip cookies, burrowed through the basement for the Easter baskets (checking thoroughly for brown recluses, of course) and made a grocery list. Saturday morning found me fruitlessly searching Walgreens and Schnucks for chocolate-covered marshmallow eggs (since some people use my unorthodox food habits to rationalize their behavior to their spouses when they are accused to eating entire bags of cookies ..”Tizzie did it in her blog,” I won’t reveal that there was a previous secret stash of such eggs purchased awhile back but which no longer existed in the physical world…). Anyway, I stocked up on healthy foods for my slim and sporty son. You know soy milk, hummus, fresh fruit, yogurt, baked potato chips, low-fat crackers, ground turkey --- you’ve heard of those foods, right? I sneaked in a package of cinnamon muffins, but the calorie count (540 each) quelled Tim’s temptation, but not mine and Bob’s. You never know when you might need some stored carbs, right? Someone might come in and steal all the food out of our kitchen or there might be another Missouri tornado which might blow the away the house - food and all -- and then I’d be glad I’d eaten that muffin. I guess you could call me a hoarder – a calorie hoarder, that is. Finally, Tim arrived. He was shocked to discover that the Tim O’Connell Suite is in the process of being transformed. That’s right. Its 1999 dark green teen angst color has been replaced by a crisp blue and beige young married man décor. While he thinks we are all talk and no action, occasionally we do take action and it is shocking to all. Megan will learn once and for all that she has not married into a family of slackers; we are merely more thoughtful than most people. Nancy joined us for a little hometown sightseeing (Pi Phi house, new Student Center Building, the new arts district) and an evening of Wii playing/watching. Since it was Easter, we had to wait for the earlier Mass to end and the people to parade out which gave me a great opportunity to yell across the departing crowd to old friends and round them up to talk to Tim. Of course, he loved it. We then went to a bounteous brunch, stuffed ourselves, and enjoyed wonderful Easter. The only things missing were Megan, Molly, and Cody. Once again, we werre reminded that family is what it’s all about.

Photos: The Bridwell Family (Easter circa 1955 _The Paris Beacon-News_), Tim & Nancy today, Mom's profile on Wii (created by Nancy)

Egging myself on,
I remain
Tizzie/Tiz/Tizmom/Mom/Liz/Elizabeth